Letters from Iwo Jima

[morvwilson]

ORIGINAL: Ike99

I´ve yet to see one picture or one story of Japanese troops sending heads of Marines home to their family members or decorating their military equiptment with such. Would you like to produce one?

Yes I saw both ¨Flags¨ and ¨Letters¨ Someone asked me that, can´t remember who but yeah I saw them.

In the first part of this quote you show why I think you need to read more. First off, Imperial Japan had a hard enough time keeping their troops supplied. Running personal packages for private soldiers was not possible for them.
Also, the attitude of the Imperial Japanese soldier was that his equipment was a gift from the emperor himself and therefor had to be treated with the utmost respect. An example of this I read in a book by a Japanese american that was in Japan when the war started and got drafted into the Japanese army and sent to China. American troops will sometimes sit on their helmets or use them for digging. Japanese soldiers would never do this because it was disrespectful to the emperor's gift.

I am the one who asked you abuot "Letters". Did you like the movie? (I was post #3)

[Doggie]

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin

So, I take it that NOBODY plays as the Japanese in any wargames? And, if you did, would you admit to it in this thread?

Nah, I always play as the Americans. And I turn off the sound and make up my own sound effects - Whooosh, whoosh! Eat napalm ya dirty nips!!! You don't look so bad, Tojo, have another burst of made in America .45 ACP! Ratatatatat!!!

And, for those of you who actually watched "Letters", you couldn't find a single sympathetic Japanese character in the entire film? Not even Saigo?

Nope. For me, the "feel good moment" was when one of Saigo's pals got crisp fried to a crackly crunch by the jarhead with the flamer. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

To Ike99: yeah, this stuff happened, and I'm not a denier. When I play SPWaW (and I usually play as the USMC), I get a peculiar pleasure out of destroying what was THEN considered to be the evil Japanese. I keep in mind what happened to the Goettge patrol on Guadalcanal, the Bataan Death March, Wake Island, Guam and Pearl Harbor. To a Marine of that time, it WAS personal.

Good for you. You actually get it. Now all you need is 13 weeks of boot camp and you'll have earned the right to wear the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor.

[Doggie]

ORIGINAL: morvwilson

ORIGINAL: Ike99

I´ve yet to see one picture or one story of Japanese troops sending heads of Marines home to their family members or decorating their military equiptment with such. Would you like to produce one?

Yes I saw both ¨Flags¨ and ¨Letters¨ Someone asked me that, can´t remember who but yeah I saw them.

In the first part of this quote you show why I think you need to read more. First off, Imperial Japan had a hard enough time keeping their troops supplied. Running personal packages for private soldiers was not possible for them.

Aw, you beat me to that one, Morv. It's kind of like saying Swedish people are more moral than everyone else because they groveled before the Nazis instead of standing up to them.

[Doggie]

ORIGINAL: Ike99

But I also see the Allies commited many, many atrocities in the Pacific War against the Japanese and it was also very common.

Ike, ya gotta learn to play to your audience. You need to specify that it was the Americans who were filthy evil racists, and not "the allies". The allies in world war II included Australia, Great Britain, and even the Dutch. Note how the other Axis fans blame the United States for the British firebombing raids on Hamburg and Dresden. The general rule here is slagging the United States is kosher, but dissing Europeans is offensive and "racist'. Get it?

It was the nature of the Pacific War. The two sides really despised each other right down to the racial level.

No, no, no.[8|] The one side, the Americans despised the Japanese, based soley on their race. The British, Austrailians, and Dutch did everything by the Geneva conventions and were only slightly less moral than the Swedes. Stick to that and you'll be a lot more popular with the other Axis fans.

I hope these tips help you out.

AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHHH! WHY WON'T IT DIE!?!?!?!

Because it seems to be the most interesting thread here. Like it or not, it's popular. Though I can understand why some Axis fans want to kill it, seeing as how the fanbois are getting their heads handed to them. "Lock the thread, lock the thread!!!" is the usual response when the "intellectuals" are circling the drain.

[06 Maestro]

ORIGINAL: TheBloodyBucket

Wow, I'm enlightened now.  Because individuals in mortal combat commit acts of cruelty and the images are ugly, the actions, goals and conduct of all governments are all equal.  GIs and Tommies in Europe shot surrending Germans and laughed, so we are all as bad as the Nazis.  Marines used body parts as trophies, so democracy is the same as any old military dictatorship. 

This sort of moral relativism works best when the despotic force is safely vanquished by the repulsive acts of soldiers who are thrust in the worst kind of nightmare imaginable and are expected to behave like saintly robots in the comfortable hindsight of we who know better. 

Yeah, every form of government is the same.  Thanks a lot for clearing that up.   

[:D][:D] Excellent!

[Ike99]

ORANGE-I would like to see the proof of these alleged widespread atrocities of Allied Troops in the Pacific theatre.

Where were these widespread killings of POWS? And what do you mean by widespread? Do you mean that one POW was killed in the Aleutians and one killed in Borneo so that they were widespread spatially? Or did one occur in 1941 and another in 1945 so they were widespread chronologically?

Yeah, your getting a real history lesson now eh ORANGE? Didn´t see all this stuff in your history book I´d bet.


"What kind of war do civilians suppose we fought, anyway? We shot prisoners in cold blood, wiped out hospitals, strafed lifeboats, killed or mistreated enemy civilians, finished off for the enemy wounded, tossed the dying into a hole with the dead, and in the Pacific boiled the flesh off enemy skull to make table ornaments for sweethearts or carved their bones into letter openers."

Edger L. , Jones, a former American war correspondent in the Pacific as published in February 1946 issue of Atlantic Monthly pg64.





a young American soldier on Okinawa, who "snatched up a submachine gun and unforgivably massacred a line of unarmed Japanese soldiers who had just surrendered."

William Manchester, Goodbye, Darkness, his 1980 memoir of fighting in the Pacific




Professor E.B. Sledge, an American biologist, painfully recalled .....:severing the hand of a dead Japanese as a battlefield trophy, "harvesting gold teeth" from the enemy dead, urinating in a corpse's upturned mouth, shooting a terrified old Okinawan woman and casually dismissing her as "just an old gook woman who wanted me to put her out of her misery".More terrifying still, Sledge found himself coming close to accepting such conduct as normal.

Memoir published by Presidia Press in 1981


A month later, on June 21, he summarized the conversation of an American general who told an unsuspecting Japanese prisoner was given a cigarette and then seized from behind and has his throat "slit from ear to ear" as a demonstration of how to kill Japanese. ¨Our men think nothing of shooting a Japanese prisoner attempting to surrender.¨

Lindbergh, American aviation pioneer in his memoirs with the US Marines in the Pacific.



...wounded Japanese attempting to surrender were ordered shot by the American commander.

Denis Warner, passing his own firsthand experience on Bougainville.


There you go Sarge. Start Spinning. [:D]




I´m thinking this story didn´t make it into LIFE magazine along with those demonizing the Japanese and skull pictures....

On the 22nd of August the camp commander held a speech in the Indonesian language which I could understand. He told us that the Emperor of Japan had the pleasure in telling us that he had decided to end the war.

However after a couple of weeks the Muslim Militia was infiltrating the area. They were forcing the Indonesian population to stop helping us. In those days these Militia were called extremists or permoeda’s, nationalists, T.K.R. Indo’s etc.

The Japanese under the command of Major KIDO fought shoulder to shoulder with the British against the Indonesian uprising. The seven camps in and around Ambarawa were attacked by thousands of Idonesian rebels which prevented any food transport. This is all described in Wing Commander T.S. TULL’S report.

After sixty years I still remember all the good people who were so friendly to us. The local Indonesian population, the british soldiers and ghurka's, the british sailers and last last but not least the german POW's. Even the Japenese commander had a weak moment when he gave me a biscuit.

These were my experiences of the Pacific War.


J.E.H. Rijkee prisoner of the Japanese 4 years.

[mjk428]

ORIGINAL: Ike99


I´m thinking this story didn´t make it into LIFE magazine along with those demonizing the Japanese and skull pictures....

On the 22nd of August the camp commander held a speech in the Indonesian language which I could understand. He told us that the Emperor of Japan had the pleasure in telling us that he had decided to end the war.

However after a couple of weeks the Muslim Militia was infiltrating the area. They were forcing the Indonesian population to stop helping us. In those days these Militia were called extremists or permoeda’s, nationalists, T.K.R. Indo’s etc.

The Japanese under the command of Major KIDO fought shoulder to shoulder with the British against the Indonesian uprising. The seven camps in and around Ambarawa were attacked by thousands of Idonesian rebels which prevented any food transport. This is all described in Wing Commander T.S. TULL’S report.

After sixty years I still remember all the good people who were so friendly to us. The local Indonesian population, the british soldiers and ghurka's, the british sailers and last last but not least the german POW's. Even the Japenese commander had a weak moment when he gave me a biscuit.

These were my experiences of the Pacific War.


J.E.H. Rijkee prisoner of the Japanese 4 years.

Nice cherry picking there Ike. I hope you realize that even when you don't show the courtesy of providing a link, everybody else has Google too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stor ... 0169.shtml

Here's a bit you left out from this poor woman's dispassionate accounting of some of her experiences:

The lightest but most frightening job was sweeping the Japanese quarters near the gate. Not only were the Dutch inmates punished there but also Indonesians from outside the camp.

One day while I was sweeping, two Japanese were beating an Indonesian gentleman with bamboo sticks. When the blood was pouring out of his mouth one Japanese got an old food tin to collect the blood. They then forced the man to drink his own blood.

Another time when I was sweeping the Japanese Commander’s bedroom, he came rushing in and ushered me outside pointing to a high flying British or U.S. war plane. He then forced me to hide under his bed. I suppose he wanted to convince me that the plane was the real enemy.
When I finished cleaning his bedroom he gave me a biscuit.

[Ike99]

Nice cherry picking there Ike.

Cherry pick? No one on this entire thread has denied Japanese soldiers committed atrocities in the Pacific. What is in dispute (to some) is if the Allies committed atrocities just a savage and criminal and if it was widespead or not.

Cherry picking? The entire US history of the war in the Pacific is Cherry Picked! [:D]

Was interesting how a story showing the Japanese as having some ¨human Characteristics¨ didn´t see the light of day until 60 years after the war no?

No doubt there are many, many such stories that have been buried underneath all the demonizing and stereo typing of Japanese soldiers into fanatical, murdering beast.

The whole time of course painting the Allied soldiers as snow white holy crusaders.

[freeboy]

seems u are angry.. I wonder if the Japaneese should be required to teach history of WW2 that shows them as instigators?
 
 

[Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Ike99

Ok, I will be the one to sound off that American GI’s did nothing even remotely in the same context as these animals.

These animals? Pretty much sums up your attitude yes Sarge?

Why am I not suppressed that you take no issue with two Japans soldiers holding a contest that the end result is 200 dead civilians.

Never mind the mindset that posted this heroic act on Japans front page .


Your starting to make this easy [;)]

[Sarge]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

seems u are angry.. I wonder if the Japaneese should be required to teach history of WW2 that shows them as instigators?

Actually Japan is under NO dilutions as we have seen expressed by Ike, PZJ .

Japan has expressed apologies for the actions of its WWII government and the barbaric tactics employed by its military .

But to answer your question ,

Yes Japan has made a point to include the descriptions of war crimes and conducted by Imperial Japan during the war years.
Yes ! governmental approved history textbooks outlining the barbaric history of the Japanese military and its countless (civilian) victims .

Funny how this little nugget has escaped Ike

[mjk428]

ORIGINAL: Ike99

Was interesting how a story showing the Japanese as having some ¨human Characteristics¨ didn´t see the light of day until 60 years after the war no?

Only somebody that proudly proclaims to have sprung from the loins of a class-A war criminal could read the story that way. Lets recap some of the highlights:

* A little girl and her family are placed in a concentration camp by the Japanese.

* Their food situation is terribly inadequate.

* There is virtually no medical care.

* The prisoners are forced into labor.

* People around the little girl "die like flies".

* The camp is so overcrowded that each prisoner is allowed just 18" of space.

* The little girl is forced into child labor.

* Prisoners and locals are tortured.

* The camp commander gives the girl a cookie "in a moment of weakness" - coincidently when Allied planes start appearing in the sky.

* Atomic bombs drop on Japan and suddenly the food situation improves - sparing the little girl's mother.

* Well after V-J day, the Japanese fight alongside the Brits against local rebels.

It probably took 60 years for this story to come to light because this woman was prompted to speak about it. Lots of people from that era are now getting their experiences recorded.

[tanker4145]

So from what I've read, some people are trying to say that the US was the bad guys in WWII and the Japs some poor innocents?

It's funny, the same people claiming that the US was so evil happen to be the ones that bait people and then go cry to the moderators like little kids.  Maybe that's because their arguments don't stand up to things like facts and true history, and are instead shaded by their hatred for a nation that their country can't compete with in terms of achievements and power.

Note to Matrix, allowing these crazy euro's to bash the US and then get a thread locked so we can't defend themselves has definately hurt your biz from me, and is also why I haven't visited in so damn long, not that anyone cares or remembers me here since I've found better stomping grounds.

[tanker4145]

Ike99,

So are you saying the US is as bad as Japan in WWII?

[freeboy]

actually my point is that Japan does not teach pearl harbor or really much at all, ask any Japanees businessmean, mba grad what he was actually taught.
 
after much silence and sake he may tell you very little, the facts are that a very imperialistic Japan saw the war going against the WA and like Germaany saw the US, correctly imo, as a weak withdrawn country committed to isolationism.
They did the worst possible thing at Pearl, sink a worthless fleet, prove air power and " awaking a sleaping giant"
Is the US perfect, look in a mirror, to any US person here and we all know the answer is no...
 
I take great exceiption to the comments like, " every year Japan apologises"

[Ike99]

Sarge- Why am I not suppressed that you take no issue with two Japans soldiers holding a contest that the end result is 200 dead civilians.

hmmm let´s see here Sarge. An atrocity, terrible, a crime, etc....

Now would you like to comment on all the atrocities by Allied soldiers commited against the Japanese presented on this thread?

freeboy- seems u are angry.. I wonder if the Japaneese should be required to teach history of WW2 that shows them as instigators?

Seems your in denial. I wonder if the Americans should be required to teach their troops in the Pacific were basicaly fighting a race war of extermination against Japan that included the widespread killing of surrendered Japanese soldiers and civilians.  

Sarge- Japan has expressed apologies for the actions of its WWII government and the barbaric tactics employed by its military . Yes Japan has made a point to include the descriptions of war crimes and conducted by Imperial Japan during the war years. Yes ! governmental approved history textbooks outlining the barbaric history of the Japanese military and its countless (civilian) victims .

Funny how this little nugget has escaped Ike

Funny how this rather enormous nugget has escaped you. Japan lost the war. If Japan had won the war the Allies would be apologising to the Japanese people over the treatment of their soldiers and the dropping of atomic bombs on them.

mjk428-

Only somebody that proudly proclaims to have sprung from the loins of a class-A war criminal could read the story that way. Lets recap some of the highlights:

* A little girl and her family are placed in a concentration camp by the Japanese.

Plenty of little Japanese girls and their parents were placed in concentration camps in the US simply for being Asian even though many were US citizens born there.

* Their food situation is terribly inadequate.

The food situation was terrible for everybody . Japanese shipping was in ruins by the end of the war. The Japanese population was on the brink of starvation. So what´s your point?

* There is virtually no medical care.

Once again this holds true for everbody on the Japanese side of the war. The same as the food situation.  What´s your point?

* The prisoners are forced into labor.

Everyone forced people into forced labor in World War 2. What´s your point?

* People around the little girl "die like flies".

I wouldn´t consider that suprising being in a tropical enviroment with scant food and medical supplies. You do?

* The camp is so overcrowded that each prisoner is allowed just 18" of space.

What was the space allotment in Allied prisoner of war camps for Japanese...if they even made it that far.

* The little girl is forced into child labor.

Little Japanese girls are forced behind barbed wire, towers, machine guns, etc. for 4 years in the United States. Their parents losing their jobs, business´s, basicaly their whole livelyhood.  The whole time a people and an entire national press are painting them as animals. Complete with a tirade of racial slurs, morbid pictures of body parts of other Japanese shamelessly gracing the covers of popular national magazines.    

* Prisoners and locals are tortured.

If the above doesn´t fall into some category of traumatizing children I´d be amazed. Besides, Japanese prisoners were certainly tortured during the War. There is overwelming evidence of that.

* The camp commander gives the girl a cookie "in a moment of weakness" - coincidently when Allied planes start appearing in the sky.

Hmmm...so?

* Atomic bombs drop on Japan and suddenly the food situation improves - sparing the little girl's mother.

Of course. The War ended, and?

* Well after V-J day, the Japanese fight alongside the Brits against local rebels.

To help protect their former captives lives. And?

It probably took 60 years for this story to come to light because this woman was prompted to speak about it. Lots of people from that era are now getting their experiences recorded.

There certainly is...too bad for you some of it is a national disgrace.

tanker4145- So from what I've read, some people are trying to say that the US was the bad guys in WWII and the Japs some poor innocents?

Who said that? Can you post a quote?

It's funny, the same people claiming that the US was so evil happen to be the ones that bait people and then go cry to the moderators like little kids.  

Who is crying to the moderators? Looks like you to me!  [:D]

Maybe that's because their arguments don't stand up to things like facts and true history, and are instead shaded by their hatred for a nation that their country can't compete with in terms of achievements and power.

Everything I´ve said on here has been quoted with a  reliable source. Books, magazines, governments sites, etc. Maybe it´s just you find some of the true facts of history distasteful. This is not my problem.

Note to Matrix, allowing these crazy euro's to bash the US and then get a thread locked so we can't defend themselves has definately hurt your biz from me, and is also why I haven't visited in so damn long, not that anyone cares or remembers me here since I've found better stomping grounds.

Then go back to where you came from.

[Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Ike99
I wonder if the Americans should be required to teach their troops in the Pacific were basicaly fighting a race war of extermination against Japan

ORIGINAL: Ike99
If Japan had won the war the Allies would be apologising to the Japanese people over the treatment of their soldiers and the dropping of atomic bombs on them

ORIGINAL: Ike99
Plenty of little Japanese girls and their parents were placed in concentration camps in the US

ORIGINAL: Ike99
]Little Japanese girls are forced behind barbed wire, towers, machine guns, etc. for 4 years in the United States

ORIGINAL: Ike99
If the above doesn´t fall into some category of traumatizing children

No agenda here


This is no longer a discussion on Japans WWII military,And has been molested into a Anti-American hate platform under the cloak of your delusional agenda driven perceptions of history .

[mjk428]

ORIGINAL: Ike99

mjk428-

Only somebody that proudly proclaims to have sprung from the loins of a class-A war criminal could read the story that way. Lets recap some of the highlights:

* A little girl and her family are placed in a concentration camp by the Japanese.

Plenty of little Japanese girls and their parents were placed in concentration camps in the US simply for being Asian even though many were US citizens born there.

* Their food situation is terribly inadequate.

The food situation was terrible for everybody . Japanese shipping was in ruins by the end of the war. The Japanese population was on the brink of starvation. So what´s your point?

* There is virtually no medical care.

Once again this holds true for everbody on the Japanese side of the war. The same as the food situation.  What´s your point?

* The prisoners are forced into labor.

Everyone forced people into forced labor in World War 2. What´s your point?

* People around the little girl "die like flies".

I wouldn´t consider that suprising being in a tropical enviroment with scant food and medical supplies. You do?

* The camp is so overcrowded that each prisoner is allowed just 18" of space.

What was the space allotment in Allied prisoner of war camps for Japanese...if they even made it that far.

* The little girl is forced into child labor.

Little Japanese girls are forced behind barbed wire, towers, machine guns, etc. for 4 years in the United States. Their parents losing their jobs, business´s, basicaly their whole livelyhood.  The whole time a people and an entire national press are painting them as animals. Complete with a tirade of racial slurs, morbid pictures of body parts of other Japanese shamelessly gracing the covers of popular national magazines.    

* Prisoners and locals are tortured.

If the above doesn´t fall into some category of traumatizing children I´d be amazed. Besides, Japanese prisoners were certainly tortured during the War. There is overwelming evidence of that.

* The camp commander gives the girl a cookie "in a moment of weakness" - coincidently when Allied planes start appearing in the sky.

Hmmm...so?

* Atomic bombs drop on Japan and suddenly the food situation improves - sparing the little girl's mother.

Of course. The War ended, and?

* Well after V-J day, the Japanese fight alongside the Brits against local rebels.

To help protect their former captives lives. And?

It probably took 60 years for this story to come to light because this woman was prompted to speak about it. Lots of people from that era are now getting their experiences recorded.

There certainly is...too bad for you some of it is a national disgrace.

You seem to have forgotten that you claimed that story portrayed the Japanese in a positive light. If some raving lunatic were to ever claim that interning Japanese Americans at Manzanar or Marines taking human trophies were examples of Americans showing some humanity then some of what you posted would be OK counterpoints.

PS - Everyone DID NOT force people into slave labor in WW2.

[morvwilson]

Ike, earlier you asked us to "suck up the truth"

I think maybe you should re-examine the source of your facts.

In rechecking the picture you posted of a japanese head on an allied tank, I don't think it was an Allied tank. Below is a picture of me and my son on a Japanese tank in a museum near Manilla R.P.
Note the simularity of the gun mount to the one in the picture you posted.

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: tanker4145
...
It's funny, the same people claiming that the US was so evil happen to be the ones that bait people and then go cry to the moderators like little kids.

...

...allowing these crazy euro's to bash the US

There's another one of those sweeping comments that just open the rift.

And I presume you work for Matrix, or know someone who does because you seem to have some inside knowledge that someone (some people) have approcahed Matrix to have the thread closed and those people are the same ones who are baiting Americans...is this correct? You do have actual knowledge of this?

Jesus, grow the fuck up (and that isn't directed at All Americans, just him).

FYI, I contacted Erik becuase this is one of the most tasteless threads I've ever read and I'm embarrassed to be on the same board as some of you.

As for you finding better stomping grounds? Bon Voyage...you don't want to take a few others with you, do you? There are definitely a handful here (US and non US) who could do with some leave from this site.

By the way, if you think this thread is about the poor Japanese and the evil Americans, you've read about 3 posts!